Dearly Beloved
by at-a-glance
Summary: There's probably a lot of things you shouldn't do drunk, attending your father's funeral is definitely one of them.


The funeral was today. All the banks and post offices are closed and all the flags are at half-mast. The TV reporters are talking about the end of an era, and mourners invade the streets with their momentums of condolence when the motorcade makes its way to the graveyard. The entire nation is submerged in somber shock and despair.

And Ayden Fenton is drunk. Really, really drunk.

His one and only goal for today is to not throw up on the President of the United States.

The President of the United States who is sitting across from him in the fancy limo talking away about things Ayden can't pretend to follow. Somewhere through the haze that is making up his entire mind he hears the well dressed formal man explaining how he has every confidence in him and that he looks forward to working closely with him. They all can't wait to see what he has to offer.

But at the moment the bile is churning in his throat. The walls are closing in and he feels it's all spinning out of control.

He now has a new goal today, to not throw up on the President of the United States twice.

--

The cemetary is filled with all of his father's friends and some enemies as well. All of them have a black patch on with a familiar white emblem gracing it. There are people he recognizes and people he doesn't, he sees Tucker Foley and his family, his traditional red beret substituted for a black one. His Aunt Jazz is there, she's probably the only one aside from Ayden that was his father's family, as his grand-parents were long dead and his own mother dead years before his father. She looks pretty enough though maybe he'll talk to her or maybe he'll vomit again.

There's surprisingly more security then he could imagine, he himself has a personal gaurd who is following him closely, though he doubts anything will be started here. Everyone respected his dad, even the people who dedicated most of their lives trying to destroy him and everything he ever loved.

"Dude is that Paulina Sanchez?" His gaurd and closest friend whispers while motioning in the direction of a slim older looking woman who was smoking a cigarette under a tree.

"Shut up John." He snaps mostly because he can't see the woman his noticably taller friend can. "This is a funeral not a fan club for some has-been-starlette."

In her twenties and thirties Paulina was a knock out and graced calendars and posters fueling a lot of teenaged boys' fantasies. She was the Ferra Faucet of his generation, though he's sure by now she looks less attractive and more like any woman her age. Perhaps it's no loss to him whether or not he sees her now.

"Don't look now but General Baxter is coming over here." Johnny states nudging his black haired friend in the ribs. Ayden visibly sighs and sends a sneer towards his blonde friend who hardly makes a professional body gaurd.

"Ah well if it isn't young Ayden," General Baxter greets looking at the short scarwny young man. "How are you holding up on this tragic day kid?"

Ayden looks the older gentleman over and remembers him from his youth. He was the head of communications and headquarters and was the one who sent his father on all the missions. A long time ago General Baxter was just a pig-headed young man who haphazardly signed up for the military. Almost everyone thought he'd be placed as a front line man and be killed but he exceled greater than any one in the army and gained a respectable and high rank over the entire U.S. army.

"Actually sir, I'm not really that young anymore." Ayden says quietly irverting his eyes away to stare awkwardly at the ground.

The General nods, "I guess you have grown up quite a bit since we've last met. Your father would be very proud of you, seeing as how you're going to carry on his work. Just think of all the bastards he cheated by having that blood clot. They would've given anything to be the one to off him. " He said with a slight laugh. "But he showed them-"

"Yeah right." Ayden can't keep himself from blurting. "He showed them by dying. Great job dad. Way to prove a point."

The aging General shifts his position. "I'm sorry, this is a tough day for you kid, I didn't mean..."

Johnny nudges Ayden in the ribs again giving him a signal that he wants his friend to stop being such a disrespectful jackass towards the people who practically raised him. But he doesn't think that he can do it, he can't look at them without seeing something of his dad. And he knows they can't look at him without seeing a stupid kid.

"Look, I'll um see you at the reception. I have to go find my Aunt." He explains lightly while stumbling away. Johnny follows him closely noticing the swagger in his steps, he's not holding his liquor very well.

He sees his aunt in the distance but has no real intention of talking to her, he only lied to the General to get away. She sees him first though and he can't run away in retreat so he watches blinking furiously as the aging red head comes forward and wraps him in a startling embrace. She sighs his name and he realizes she sounds so old.

"Oh Ayden, you..." She pulls away and holds his shoulders frowning. "You smell like booze." She stats looking dissatisified with her realization.

He looks at her and tries searching her face for some sort of understanding, but he knows she doesn't. But he also knows he doesn't care even if she helped raise him, she was his stand in mother when his own died when he was just a little boy, no older than five. He still doesn't care he doesn't feel like he owes her anything or anyone who helped raise him.

His father was a renowned man who had a big circle of friends and a circle of enemies, he worked for the country he was a scientist and the superhero that every one always wanted. And what was he, his son, his son who inherited his abilities but none of that sense of duty. He didn't want to be his dad, he didn't want to save the world or be a super scientist, he didn't want the name or any of the responsibility to go with it,

As of right now the only thing he wanted was to drink some more. "Ayden, you've got to grow up sometime you're twenty three years old and now you've got a big pair of shoes to fill."

He glares he can't count how many people in the past few days who told him he's suddenly inherited his father's life. He didn't understand what they were thinking, he didn't have to be his father just because the old man was dead now. "Y'know Aunt Jazz, I don't think I'm cut out to be a Fenton let alone a Phantom."

She looks at him like he's actually hurt her, though he's sure she's more devastated that her little brother is dead more than the fact her ungrateful nephew is drunkenly disclaiming his own birthright. But that woman, though her looks are fading, her mind is just as sharp and she gives him a sort of wry smile.

"You know Ayden, I think you should've come sober today, perhaps you'd have a different perspective on the reason why people around you are here."

Then she was gone but the buzzing in his skull isn't. God it was painful. Facing Johnny he reaches into his coat and draws out a flask and takes a few good swigs before anyone notices him. It's hard liquor and it burns his throat but it's doing the job so he loves it. Johnny shakes his head and pats his old friend's shoulder. Ayden shakes his muddled head and wants nothing more than to go home and knows well that he can't.

The minister asks him to come up and say a few words, and he's frozen trying to figure out how he's supposed to get from where he's standing over to the podium. Getting drunk was perhaps not the best idea. Of course, he's also had enough to drink that he mostly doesn't care when he trips over someone's feet and or that racks himself on a giant arrangement of flowers.

Standing in front of the crowd, he hesitates. He knew he was going to have to give a speech, he even wrote one out. Well started to, but it's in his other coat, and it was only five scratched out sentences anyway. At least he's drunk so he doesn't really care anymore what he says or if it's an embarrassment.

When he starts to speak, he's pleasantly surprised to realize that his voice doesn't slur or shake. He launches into it, and by the time he starts listening to what he's saying it's too late to take it back anyway. "My dad is dead," he says. "It's weird to say it. It doesn't seem real. Even when you say it. Dead. Danny Fenton is dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead."

Later all the headlines will read "Danny Fenton's Son Driven Mad By Grief" and "Is This Our New Hero?" and other stupid things like that but right now he's just talking. He's not being all refined and diginfied like he knows he should be, he's just talking about his dead father to a crowd of people who didn't even really know him anyway.

"It sounds strange right? And it sucks...for you. All you people who built your lives around him, makes you look pretty stupid right about now. I guess you all thought he'd never let you down, that you'd all keep playing forever and ever. Like some chess game and you were all his pawns but the Universe still toppled your king anyway..." He vaguely wonders why he's talking about chess and has now forgotten where he was going with the idea.

"Anyway...it's over. King me, or something, I don't know I never really liked chess anyway, my dad always liked to play it though. Said it was all about, I don't know, how things fall into place through strategy." He pauses and realizes he's rambling. "But my point..." His eyes droop and he's exhausted and wishing desperately to get some sleep or stop the world from making him so damn dizzy with its constant spinning.

"The point!" He shouts a little too loud, he grips the edge of the podium to keep himself from toppling over. "Is he always wins, except for now 'cause he's dead. So now you'll have to figure out what the hell you are without him and it's kinda obvious that most of you aren't anything without him. Bunch of losers trying to live out some weird-o hero fantasy like complete-"

Johnny grabs his arm and tugs him away and Ayden wheels around and tries to pull away. "I'm talking here!" He shouts, "The nerve of some people, and at a funeral! What the hell." But everything is going far more slower than he remembers and it sort of dawns on him that he's horribly drunk.

Ayden thinks for a moment and wonders if he said any of that outloud and now he can't remember what he was talking about before he was interrupted. He figures he should just pick the next best thing that comes to him and wrap it up with that.

But Johnny has had enough and forces him away from the podium and hustles him through the crowd of the shocked blurry faces. "Good luck geting lives, idiots." He shouts while being muscled away and he wonders if anyone hears him or even wants to. As soon as they get away from the cusp of the crowd Ayden trips and goes crashing to the ground.

"Ow," He grabs his now bleeding arm but doesn't really feel the pain. "What the hell is your problem, man?"

When he turns over he sees the blonde man looking coldly at him. His face is shaded strangely against the pale gray sky and he is shaking his head making a low "tsk-tsking" like he was some old lady. A really judgmental old lady. "You threw up on the President and gave your father the worst eulogy ever given in the history of eulogies, all in one day. Are you trying to win jackass of the year or what?"

He sits up craddling his arm and glares. "What are you, my mom?" He rolls his eyes. "Oh, that's right, I don't have a mom."

"Look if you want to make a fool of yourself no one is going to stop you. But I'm trying to be a good friend here and believe me you don't make it easy." Johnny says slowly extending an arm to help his friend up.

"Just leave me alone."

Johnny wrinkles his nose. "Fine, its not like you need any protection anyway, and it's no skin off my nose if you don't want me to drag your drunk ass to the limo."

"I can manage on my own. Thanks. I am an adult."

He hears Johnny huff. "That's debatable." Then the shadow he was casting disappears and Ayden knows he's left him.

--

He sits with his head down between his bent knees for a while staring at the strangely green grass. He's exhausted and trying to fight off the urge to disappear because he knows he can and knows that if he does he'll still be in the same place anyway. He always hated when people used that expression, disappearing never solved anything.

He feels someone sit beside him and half-expects Johnny is back to talk this through but the voice is different. "Hello, kiddo." It's Tucker, or Uncle Tuck, never Mr. Foley.

Tucker was one of those guys that really took care of him when he was a kid and was also a real technology wizard. He couldn't count how many times with Tucker around that he was saved from any one that took him hostage. All the locators, the hyper-jets, all the technology his father used in his ghost fighting and heroics almost always came from and were programed by Tucker.

He also remembered playing with the Foley children and Tucker reading him bed-time stories when his father was away on particurally diplomatic missions.

"Ayden." He mutters stubbornly.

He always thought Tucker would make a better father than his own and had been jealous of the ordinary lives the Foley kids led. While he was being held captive and having his life held ransom Tucker's kids went to school and did all the regular student things. They only had drills for fires and explosions when he had to suffer through actual explosions on more than one occasion and more fire-based things then he could count. They had no idea how lucky they were and how kind their dad was for not exposing them to his life with Team Phantom.

"Sorry Ayden. I guess you're all grown up now and want to be treated like the adult you are."

"It's not a big deal, I'm just not partial to nicknames." He responds and looks at the older man.

They sit together in silence for a while which Ayden likes. It was a decidedly refreshing to not have to listen to another person tell him over and over how sorry they are, and how much they loved his dad, or how much they're counting on him to be just like Danny.

"Tough day, eh?" Tucker finally says.

"You could say that."

"You don't have to talk about it, I can leave you know."

Ayden waves it off. "No, it's alright, you were always the one of the few people I trusted."

Tucker smiles and the wrinkles in his face crease with the action. Ayden briefly wonders how he'll age and wonders if he'll even live long enough to see it for himself.

Tucker can't seem to stop smiling as he wraps an arm around Ayden."So many memories, so many good times. I always thought of you as kind of a nephew Ayden."

"I did have a seperate room at your house." He chuckles slightly and thinks how nice it is to have someone actually talking to him. Someone who doesn't think he's just a lesser duplicate of his dad. Someone who expected him to be his own person and not be anything but who he is. Tucker laughs with him.

"You were always such a bright boy. I always knew you were headed for great things."

And why not? Ayden feels a warm smile and he straightens his back feeling confidence. This is exactly what he's been dying to hear, what he needs to hear. He needed to be reminded that this doesn't have to be a disaster, that _he_ doesn't have to be a disaster. Afterall he's Ayden Fenton, what kid didn't want to be him? Who's had more adventures and action than him? Who else has super ghost abilities? Nobody, that's who.

Tucker pats him on the back and Ayden loses some of his new found balance. "You're a lot like him, you know."

"I-thanks, I apperciate that." He's surprised that he sincerely means that he apperciates it. Whenever Tucker said things it didn't sound like mindless rhetoric, it always seemed more realistic, more true. So it meant something.

Tucker hands him a strange looking gadget, much like a cell phone but with a video-screen. He eyes it strangely and slightly recognizes the model, his father had one he thinks. It was a communicator, but this one wasn't a close circut one like he had when he was a kid, this meant any national leader, any U.S. military commander, any part of Team Phantom could reach him with distress signals.

"You're gonna need this." He explains. "I redesigned your father's old one, this is more functional and has a built in locator so you wont need a seperate one."

"Oh." His head feels heavy and his face is heating up. He feels so stupid for ever thinking this was going to be any different.

The rage intensifies as he stands up feeling as though he was about to burst. He was so stupid. So damn stupid to think that anyone would see him differently. That buzz was back except now it was like an angry raging buzz. "I'd rather spend my life as a hermit then be everyone and their mother's go-to-guy," He tosses the gadget at Tucker's lap. "You're just like everyone else! You're nothing without my father!"

But Tucker's just watching him with this annoyingly infuriating bemused pity and Ayden can hardly hold back his puke. He tries to make an angry exit but instead trips over his feet and falls. He thinks he hears Tucker laughing but can't tell over the buzzing rage. "You might as well have died with him for all the use you are with out him! Everyone needs to get it through their God damn heads, he's not coming back!"

This time as he pulls himself back to his feet he gets a good run going, but is still stumbling. He can't follow his own feet and has no idea where he's going and why and he trips over flowers and slams through people but doesn't care. He falls again this time near the edge of the cemetary where he can see the open grave and the people still surrounding it, all of them looking so small. He's screaming at the top of his lungs but not at Tucker, and not at anyone else, just his dad.

"You were never a good father, you couldn't even be there! You were always expecting me to be something I'm not! I'm not even sorry you're gone!" But it was all a lie. The truth was as long as his dad was alive, being his dad, he had a chance to be maybe something else. Something different, he hasn't figured out what that is, but he knows he never will now.

"Why couldn't you just wait? Until I knew what...until I knew who..."

For a moment it's quiet and the rain is starting. And he's not sure if he's crying or not but he remembers his dad. He remembers all the times he held him close doteing over him when he was too close to death, showing him how to "go-ghost", and all those strange lessons in the paranormal. He remembers the man being the only parent he ever had and how well he tried to fill the gaps in his son's life.

Danny Fenton had been the man everyone looked to in desperate times. Now people were looking at him to guide them, he's supposed to be their hero who never loses his composure. He had to be the leader and he was supposed to set a good example just like his dad. This identity is his now whether he wants it or not.

He knows he'll never be half the man his father was, he's not brave or strong. He doesn't have the ability to stand up and fight and think quick in desperate situations like his dad. He doesn't even understand the concept of dying for others and knows it'd only be a disgrace to try and be like his dad. He wasn't a hero, he wasn't even close.

He feels security pulling him up, Johnny is there saying things to calm him, and he can see the crowd has gathered near him away from the coffin. Away from the man they are here to mourn because his son went and made a damn fool of himself. Now he's finally outshined his father and he's not happy.

They're taking him back to the limo and he can see all flash bulbs popping and he knows he looks like a trainwreck. He knows the pictures will spread, and all the kids on campus will see them with the rest of the nation, and he can say goodbye to his reputation. And any chance he ever had of sleeping with anyone. Ever. Everyone will remember how he hysterical he was, how insane he appeared, and how much of a stupid kid he really is.

But right now he's not worried about it because he's still drunk. Really, really, drunk, so drunk that if he sits quietly his vision will turn gray around the edges and close in until it's all black. Until he's not Ayden Fenton, or Ayden Phantom, or even Danny Fenton's son. Until he's not anything at all anymore. While he is on the brink of unconciousness a happy thought lingers as he slips under.

Thank God for booze.

* * *

_Took a break from my normal style of writing, I decided this is a terrible style for me, characters are still as cynical and miserable as always though. But yeah I hate all those stories where Danny's children just adore him and he's the perfect father...you really think they wouldn't develop a complex and he would have all the time in the world to to dedicate to them?_


End file.
